I can remember quite a few occasions when these sales people seemed to go out of their way to avoid coming over to speak to me as I studied the cars on offer. They seemed to studiously avoid eye contact, let alone get up from their seats to come and speak.

Huge investment now goes into setting corporate standards for car showrooms, with manufacturers dictating the design of the buildings – right down to the specification of the floor tiles. Equally, dealers have to apply corporate standards to everything from their advertising through to the training of staff.

Around the massive Autostadt site are pavilions dedicated to the Volkswagen Group brands – Volkswagen, Audi, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, Seat and Skoda. Some are quite imaginative and some are more like a traditional modern showroom.

We had read an account that spoke, in breathless tones, about visiting the Lamborghini pavilion. Sure enough, when we arrived there we were told to come back in 15 minutes for the next show.

We waited patiently. When we got in, the excitement turned out to be an audio visual presentation of a Lamborghini flying around the desert, punctuated by a large disk on the wall rotating to reveal a Lamborghini stuck to it vertically. Interesting, but hardly worthy of the breathless account!

Autostadt is not just about viewing. You can book some driving experiences, include the on-site of-road course.